Baseball

By Djack

Photo Via MLB.com

Los Angeles Dodgers come to town tonight, this is a start of a 20 game stretch that is going to make or break the Yankees. We don't have one easy series besides playing the Rays again for the rest of the season. After this series it's just games against the division, time to prove that we are the real deal, and that we can manage to make the playoffs even while playing in the best division in baseball. Enough about the road ahead, tonight we have a hot Dodgers team coming to town, and it's the start of crunch time. By the way, Yankee legend Don Mattingly returns to the place he was so great for so many years. Let's welcome him back by kicking his team's ass.

Game 1: Bryan Mitchell takes the mound against Jose De Leon, so right off the bat I think we have an advantage in the pitching match up. Jose De Leon is a rookie pitcher coming off his first start in the majors. It wasn't all that impressive, he's going to have to come into Yankee Stadium, and shut down one of the most powerful offenses in all of baseball, I don't think so. Bryan Mitchell looked great in his first start of the season allowing no runs in five innings, do I expect him to shutout the Dodgers offense, absolutely not, but I do expect him to give us six strong innings, and let our bullpen handle the rest. Yankees bounce back tonight and take the first game of the series against the Dodgers

Game 2: This is the most crucial game of the series. CC Sabathia takes on Julio Urias in what could be a pitchers duel or a slugfest depending on which version of these guys show up. CC Sabathia has been great some days, average some days, and awful some days so basically you never know what you're getting from him anytime he takes the mound, lets just hope it's not the latter of those options. Julio Urias has looked like an ace in the making in a few of his starts, but just like CC you never know which guy you're going to get. I predict for the Yankees bats to mash against this kid, we are going to score enough runs that it won't matter what type of start CC has. Although, we could really use a long start from CC, our bullpen had to throw a lot of innings in yesterdays game, and we don't know how many innings Mitchell can really throw he might only be able to give us five. The bullpen has their work cut out for them in Wednesday's game as well with Pineda taking the mound. Regardless of CC, Yankees will score a shit ton of runs in this game as we take the series win in game two.

Game 3: Mark this one down as a loss for the Yankees, Clayton Kershaw will be taking the mound in the Bronx on Friday. We have Pineda going for us so you know he's going to only give us five innings max, and probably allow at least three runs minimum. Kershaw probably won't throw more than five innings since he is coming off a back injury, so the Dodgers won't overuse him so he is good to go come playoff time. We won't score any runs as long as he is on the mound, I expect us to be at a 4-0 deficit by the time he comes out of the game. Dodgers bullpen will hold us from coming back and we will lose the final game of this series. It's okay, can't sweep everyone just got to keep winning series and the playoffs are inevitable.

Players to watch:​Corey Seager- I expect a big series from this kid, I'm talking multiple homeruns as he will be the biggest threat to our pitching staff and our chances of winning this series. He says Derek Jeter is his idol so he's going to want to impress Jeter by going off in his old home.

Adrian Gonzalez- I have a bad feeling that if we are going down this series it's going to be at the hands of this guy. I know Seager is going to do some damage, but if Gonzalez goes on a rampage as well this series could get real ugly for us.

Gary Sanchez- He's going to carry over his hot bat from last series and continue to rake for us this series. If Sanchez hits, everyone is going to hit, so we need our spark plug to stay hot so our offense will follow suit.